“Vibration driven” mechanical switches: A novel transduction methodology with applications to DC-DC “diode-less” voltage multipliers

Voltage multiplication is often needed to perform accurate measurement of both DC and AC voltages or in the energy accumulation section of transducers used for energy harvesting. Traditional voltage multipliers, are usually composed of capacitors, inductors, diodes and switches. This approach implies the adoption of active elements (i.e. transistors, MOS, etc.) and a supply voltage is required in order to guarantee the desired effects. However disadvantages in terms of power consumption are expected that can affect the total power budget in low power systems and energy harvesting devices. We consider here transduction systems embedded into an environment where vibrations are present that can be used as energy source. A novel transduction strategy is proposed here to realize vibration driven DC-DC voltage multipliers transducers; our strategy uses mechanical switches, driven by environmental vibrations, and capacitors but not diodes. Implementation of the working principle into a real device will be discussed with analytical models and numerical simulations. Furthermore, an experimental prototype is presented together with some preliminary experimental results that validate the ideas discussed in this papers.